WHAT IS HAPPENING IN TURKEY: ASCERTAINMENT OF DAMAGE AFTER POLL

By Ugur Tezcan

After months of political turmoil and corruption scandals, Turkey's most controversial local elections are finally over. These local elections have been the toughest, the most polarizing and dividing in the country's political history. PM Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) declared a 46-percent win, but ensuing results indicated that AKP won 43-percent of the vote. Erdogan didn't wait to make his balcony speech until results have been verified by the Supreme Electoral Council of Turkey (aka YSK) and stated that the opponents "will pay!"

Not so surprisingly, Erdogan's ruling party wasn't the only one to call election results a victory. Three other opposition parties; Republican People's Party (CHP), Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) also declared the local elections a success based on their gains and overall performance. These four parties won about 95-percent of the vote. Other political parties lost voters to major players of the game due mainly to the nature of this highly polarized election.

The 2014 local elections have been peculiar in many regards. So unique that I believe an analysis and ascertainment of damage is indispensable for various reasons. Such an analysis will shed light on the fate of upcoming elections in Turkey.

Davutoğlu says ISIL is driven by anger, avoids calling it terrorist

Photo: Reuters

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has continued Ankara's tradition of avoiding to call the Islamic State as a terrorist organization, says militants of the group are driven largely by anger.

"The structure called ISIL, in its core, could be viewed as a terrorized, radical group, but people joined there ... and there are significant numbers of Turkmens, Sunni Arabs, Kurds... we should know it like this. Previous discontent, anger, discrimination and insults gave birth to a wide reaction in a big front," Davutoğlu told NTV news channel on Thursday.

Erdoğan gov't transforms Turkey into land of oppression, bans

Credit: Today's Zaman

An upward trend of democratic achievements and efforts to make Turkey a more civilized and democratic country have been reversed recently -- particularly after the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) grew more authoritarian and intolerant toward criticism starting from the Gezi Park protests of last summer.

Since then, Turkey has turned inward and transformed into an anti-democratic regime.

The blame largely rests on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his AK Party government. For many, Turkey is now a country where criticism is not tolerated; social media platforms such as YouTube and Twitter are blocked very easily; people are killed for participating in anti-government street protests; and journalists are fired for speaking against the government.

Turkey’s Failed Foreign Policy

By AARON STEIN - In 2002, Turkey’s Justice and Development Party, known as the A.K.P., turned to Ahmet Davutoglu, then an obscure academic, to help craft its new foreign policy.

In 2009, he became foreign minister and was soon attempting to resolve the region’s numerous crises. His foreign policy vision guided Turkey’s approach to the Arab Spring uprisings and has served as the basis for Turkey’s handling of the Syrian civil war.

With the Foreign Ministry under his stewardship, Turkey has both been hailed as a democratic beacon for the Islamic world, and denounced as an irresponsible regional power for allowing foreign fighters to transit its territory en route to battlefields in Syria.

After initially receiving accolades, Mr. Davutoglu’s decision-making has become a source of controversy in the West. And in the Middle East, Turkey’s embrace of religiously conservative political movements has run afoul of several Persian Gulf states and now Egypt, contributing to its political isolation.

Now Mr. Davutoglu has risen to the premiership, filling the shoes vacated by President-elect Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Unfortunately, we should not expect any changes to Turkey’s failed foreign policy. Mr. Davutoglu believes his vision will eventually be vindicated.

Report: Religious communities profiled by AK Party government

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government reportedly ordered the profiling of all religious groups in Turkey: the İsmailağa community led by Mahmut Ustaosmanoğlu, the Süleymancılar community led by Süleyman Hilmi Tunahan, the Nur movement, the Nakşi movement, and the Kadiri movement, as well as the Hizmet movement, a faith-based civil society initiative intensely disliked by President-elect Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

According to a report in the Taraf daily on Sunday, the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and the National Police Department Intelligence Unit may have jointly been illegally collecting data about religious communities and profiling them on orders from the AK Party. In 2009, former National Police Department Intelligence Bureau Chief Hüseyin Namal, who was assigned to the post to replace Ramazan Akyürek, reportedly sent an official document to the police departments of the 81 provinces demanding that the departments provide detailed intelligence to the government regarding the religious communities in their provinces.

Why does Berlin admit to wiretapping Ankara?

by Savas Genc*, Today's Zaman | The reports German media published suggesting Germany was wiretapping Turkey were important; but the details on these reports are also crucial because they offer some insights into the course of bilateral relations between Turkey and Germany. Recent reports indicated that American intelligence was wiretapping German Chancellor Merkel. This raised issues in bilateral relations between Washington and Berlin. The allegations claiming Germany also wiretapped Turkey caused similar problems and questions.

Did American intelligence leak this information to take revenge on Berlin? Or did the German state deliberately leak this information to deliver a message to Ankara? This is a possibility given that Germany might have dismissed the allegations and sorted this out with the Turkish authorities behind closed doors; they could have even apologized for it. However, neither Merkel nor German bureaucrats denied the allegations. They even specifically commented on it. Speaking to the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper, German authorities did not offer an apology to Turkey and further justified what they had done by offering their reasons. Noting that Turkey cannot be compared to Britain, France or other advanced democracies, German government officials argued that wiretapping was an inevitable action for their own domestic security.

Erdoğan spends vacation in controversial Urla villas

Prime Minister and President-elect Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his family have been on vacation recently in their controversial villas in the Urla district of İzmir province that were allegedly built in an environmentally protected zone, according to the Hürriyet daily.

Ankara keeps silent about German spying on Turkey

Despite initially demanding an explanation, Ankara has since decided to remain publicly silent over the allegations that Germany has been spying on Turkey for five years, while reports circulating in the German media allege that Turkey's silence is due to the information in the hands of the German intelligence service.

Erdogan names loyal ally Davutoglu as new Turkey PM

 

Credit: AFP Photo/Adem Altan

Turkey's president-elect Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday named Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to succeed him as ruling party leader and prime minister, promoting an ally who is expected to show unstinting loyalty to the new head of state.

Erdogan -- who has dominated Turkey's political scene for 11 years as prime minister -- is to be inaugurated as president next week after his election victory earlier this month.

Erdoğan uses 'fake' license plate to avoid election ban, daily says

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan allegedly placed another car's license plate on his official car in order to be able to continue using his car during the presidential election campaign and avoid an election ban that prohibits public officials from making use of public resources during an election campaign, a Turkish daily claimed on Friday.

Government using TÜRGEV to form religious community alternative to Hizmet

The Foundation of Youth and Education in Turkey (TÜRGEV), on whose executive board Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's son Bilal sits and which was involved in a corruption scandal that became public on Dec. 17, is going to be used as a means to create an alternative religious community to the faith-based Hizmet movement, some politicians and analysts have argued.